The Stages of Grief
by midfielder
Summary: Kate learns how to deal. story premise: Jack doesn't survive the Moth.
1. Denial

The Stages of Grief

_Kate learns how to deal._

Denial

_She waits by the shore because she knows that's where he'll search for her._

She has been at it for three straight days with no water and food. Just sitting underneath the canopy of leaves like a rock, immovable and impenetrable. The others worry, she knows. She has seen them huddling together, mouthing off words she can't read. But she knows she's the topic of discussion since they all sneak glances at her, time and again, as if to check if she's still there or maybe, if she's still conscious. They sympathize, have nothing other than concern for her. But sympathy, she knew well, never got anyone anywhere. It didn't save Jack. It won't save her. Still, there was a handful who dared.

Charlie was first. She gives the credit to guilt rather than anything else. He couldn't help him. Jack was injured. He wasn't. And when the boulders above them so much as creaked, she imagines, it was every man for himself. And now, he thinks he owes her an apology. He couldn't save him, they couldn't save him, she couldn't save him; there's a wealth of guilt to be passed around. But she kept mum, just offered him a sad smile. She can't give him what he wants; forgiveness was not for her or anyone to give.

The next day, Sayid tried the rational and practical route. "You can't go on like this. You'll die." There's nothing more effective than a threat to make you stand a bit more in attention. Her eyes flickered, as if recognizing reason; survival was always what kept her on her toes, on the run. But she's way past survival now, she had thought. So she remained as still as when he had approached her. Sayid simply nodded and walked away. The Iraqi man is wise; he understood there's a more tragic death than that of the physical kind.

On day three, Sawyer gave her some honesty. "He's gone, Freckles. People die. We can't do nothing about it." She decided to be honest, too. "My name…is Kate."

Today, it's Sun that comes. She walks up to sit beside her, at a reserved distance. Then she places, of all fruits, guavas by her side. Kate feels a familiar warmth envelop her. She smiles at her, the most genuine of smiles she could afford at the moment. When she has gone, she eats them. She decides she will need the energy for the next days of waiting.

I've got /stage 2-anger/ lined up. that is, if you're up for it.


	2. Anger

The Stages of Grief

_Kate learns how to deal._

Anger

_She knows they're harmless, like bubbles of air floating just below the sea water. But her tongue is a fine needle of pain. _

"Where are you going?" It's Hurley that asks. Everybody's by the campfire waiting for dinner.

"Somebody has to get food." She doesn't look back.

"Locke's already on it, Kate." Like Jack was _always_ on it, she wants to ask Shannon. Instead, she quickens her pace. Nowadays, it's easier for her not to talk; less arguments, less bitter words exchanged, hence, less hollow apologies to be made. And so, the silence thickens and her pain is smothered in it. But once in a while, in the pettiest of circumstances, it rears its ugly head.

"Look, it's not safe out there," Boone calls out.

"Exactly," she says. But she's already too far away for them to hear.

next chap /stage 3-bargaining/


	3. Bargaining

The Stages of Grief

_Kate learns how to deal._

Bargaining

_On really bad days, Kate tries God._

Thirty days has elapsed and time has taken its role in slow-paced change. She now spends most of her time alone, in the jungle, climbing trees for fruit, getting seeds from a variety of plants and watching birds. She keeps to the periphery, of course, where she can run to the shore anytime a certain threat presents itself. Like a polar bear, perhaps. She also helps Sun out with the garden, Locke with the hunting, and occasionally, Jin with the fishing. Kate has always been better with hunting. Sometimes, she even visits Aaron and Claire. But mostly, she visits Aaron. She believes she has moved on, has grown accustomed once more to island life.

So when she visits Jack at the caves, talks to him like he was actually talking back, she reasons to herself, it's just because she misses him.

And when, on bad days, she visits him just to sit there and ignore him, she reasons, it's just because she's angry at him for not being there for her anymore.

And when, on really bad days, she tries talking to God, she reasons, it's because she's running out of reasons.

She tries to annoy Him with little questions like why, how could you, and, occasionally, the downright rude, what kind of god are you. She tries to fish for a response, like "I have plans for you." Or a reprimand, "Have you no faith?" Or a deal, "If you just wise up, I'll give him back to you." Or an insult, "You didn't deserve him." Or maybe, even just a grunt. Anything, she thinks, will do.

But unlike Jack, He never answers back.

next chap /stage 4-depression/ hope you're still reading.


	4. Depression

The Stages of Grief

_Kate learns how to deal._

Depression

_At count four, she breaks._

She had been unable to visit Jack's little clinic at the cave. It shames her that it took a scrape on the knees to make her come by. Infection in a place like this, she remembers him saying, can be as lethal as a snake bite. Even in his absence, he finds a way to take care of her.

She finds the place a mess with his precious bottles of medication everywhere. People, she figures, had taken to self-medication now that he was gone; anyone could come by, pop an aspirin for a headache and be off. When a quick fix of aspirin won't do, there is, sadly, no other option. Without the doctor in the house, no one else tries to keep anyone from dying.

His personal things she finds carefully stacked in one corner. She smiles to herself, being reminded of Jack and his unwavering compulsion for structure, for order. She crouches and surveys the pile: a couple of books, a pair of reading glasses, and neatly folded clothes. She picks up one of the books to read. But then, a pen is dislodged and falls from the intrusion. The pen rolls out of sight, under his makeshift bed. She turns her attention to the book, scans through the pages. She finds scribbles at the margins. A full-time doctor, a part-time lit critic; who would've thought, she muses. Then again, there's a lot she doesn't know about Jack, things about him she won't ever know.

What normally would be blank pages at the back, she finds crowded with names. Ultimately, she thinks, it's the manuscript in his chicken scratch handwriting. The first on the list is hers and suddenly, she's unsure if she wants to go on. But she convinces herself she can be brave. Beside her name, he writes in caveman fashion, "taught me sinking. vegetarian. a friend with secrets. must remember to visit." Charlie's next. "a bloody rock god. needs help with Claire, though. must listen to record sometime. driveshaft? coerce politely into rehab." "Hurley. buy mp3 player. remember, gets way too queasy around blood. kicked his ass at golf. Will kick his ass at real golf back at home." And so the list goes. There are names which were unsigned with a description. But to all of them, he affixed a dash as if he had the intent to fill them up soon, as if he had the time to know them all.

It's when she finishes reading all of them that she starts to count.

But at count four, she realizes the fear is bigger than she is. She finally grasps, with all awareness, the enormity of the loss, the weight of irreplaceability. At count five, she has to sit down as a string of sobs threatens to take over. And she lets it. It has been a long time since she has cried. Not since Tom. She cried then because she thought she had lost the only person she could run to. She allows herself to cry for Jack because this time, she thinks, it's for real.

up next, last chap, last stage /stage 5-acceptance/


	5. Acceptance

The Stages of Grief

_Kate learns how to deal._

Acceptance

_The dirt settles and she can see._

She lunges forward with the net stretched between her hands, splashing herself with water up to her torso, but the fish is too quick for her. She hasn't regained her balance when she tries again, following the fish to a nearby rock. Now, she thinks, she'll be able to corner it. She launches a train of lunges. The water gets murky, the white sand and dirt having been cast into a swirl with all her flouncing about.

"Wrong." Jin says, coming from behind her. "Look." And she does. Sun's teaching him English has paid off. Now they can talk, even if it's only in fragments.

"You keep still." He stands, his feet far apart, as though waiting to pounce; the net stretched out to their limits in his hands. He stays like that for a good few seconds. "Dirt go down so you see fish where," he explains. She wonders where he gets that sort of composure, dignified and at the same time, quite plain.

She nods and tries to assume the position she had just seen Jin demonstrate. But when the fish makes a reappearance, she forgets composure and dives in after it. And she gives it all she's got. She doesn't care anymore; how wet she gets, how silly she must look or how irrationally desperate she must seem. This is between her and the fish; no matter what, she tells herself, this time it wasn't getting away. She comes close enough; she practically could feel its scales leaving a trace of slime in her hands. But she comes away from the tussle with nothing. The fish slips away, quietly.

"Let go," he says. The fish, she says to herself, he means the fish.

"But that was our dinner" is all she could get out, the frantic exertion rendering her momentarily breathless. She wipes off the salt water from her face and rests her hands on her knees, letting them carry her weight.

He shakes his head. That makes her look at him. "You do not own anything. You cannot." He says it in his distinct, matter-of-fact way. There it is again, that same composure, and it unsettles her, tips the balance of guilt and pain she has made for herself so she could function.

She only nods, a brief feeling of relief washing over her. And then, a flash of pain in her brain.

So this is it then, this is how it's going to be. This is how she's going to live the rest of her life. Peace will come and go like the waves. And an interval away, so shall pain.

So that's that. tell me what you think.


End file.
